1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing data that describes an image, and also relates to an image forming device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming devices such as copiers, laser printers, etc. are known to the art. The image forming devices are provided with an image processing apparatus that binarizes image data that has been input, selectively forms printing dots on a recording medium based on the binarized data, and forms an image on the recording medium.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. H1-156070 teaches a technique wherein data is binarized by the Error Diffusion Method, and a printer engine is driven based on the binarized data. With the Error Diffusion Method, pixel values that describe the tone of processing pixels are accumulated sequentially, and the accumulated value is compared with a threshold value. If the accumulated value does not reach the threshold value, ‘0’ is assigned to the processing pixel. If the accumulated value reaches the threshold value, ‘1’ is assigned to the processing pixel, and a tone value that corresponds to the formation of a printing dot is subtracted from the accumulated value. With the Error Diffusion Method, the error between the binarized values and the pixel values that describe the image data accumulates, and the accumulated error value is reflected in a different pixel being binarized.